classical rhetoric and the arts in early modern europe

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1 classical rhetoric and the arts in early modern europe < In this book Caroline van Eck examines what roles classical rhetoric played in visual persuasion in the arts and architecture of early modern Europe. Rhetoric is the study of persuasive communication. Originally its main concern was persuasive speech, but from its first systematic treatments by Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian it gave great importance to the use of visual means of persuasion gesture, facial expression or vivid description. This is the first full-length study to look at the issue of visual persuasion in this period, both in architecture and the visual arts, and to investigate what roles rhetoric played in visual persuasion from the perspective of artists and of viewers. Caroline van Eck is professor of architectural history at Leiden University, The Netherlands. In 2004 she was the first art historian to be awarded one of the prestigious VICI grants from the Dutch Foundation of Scientific Research (NWO). She has published widely on Renaissance architecture, rhetoric and artistic theory; edited British Architectural Theory : An Anthology of Texts and co-edited Dealing with the Visual: Aesthetics, Art History and Visual Culture, and The Concept of Style in Philosophy and the Arts, which was also published by Cambridge University Press.

2 classical rhetoric and the arts in early modern europe < Caroline van Eck Leiden University

3 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY , USA Information on this title: / ß Caroline van Eck 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2007 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Eck, Caroline van. Classical rhetoric and the arts in early modern Europe / Caroline van Eck 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN Art Language. 2. Persuasion (Rhetoric) History. 3. Visual communication Europe History. I. Title. N72.L36E dc ISBN hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. This book was published with financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)

4 for hende bauer

5 contents < Illustrations Acknowledgements page ix xi introduction: rhetoric and visuality 1 Notes 13 Part I: Theory one: representation and persuasion in alberti s de pictura 17 Gesture between presence and representation 17 Rhetorical concepts in De Pictura 20 Compositio as a cardinal virtue of style 23 Painting considered as pictorial representation 26 Painting as persuasive representation 28 Notes 29 two: the foundations of persuasive architecture 31 Introduction 31 Architecture is a science 34 Architecture and rhetoric provide the foundations of society 36 The use of rhetoric in formulating treatises and articulating the design process 37 Is architecture an art of representation? 46 Conclusion 50 Notes 51 Part II: Invention three: how to achieve persuasion in painting: the common ground 55 Introduction 55 vii

6 contents Composition and the common ground in ancient rhetoric 61 Achieving a common ground in Renaissance painting: composition and linear perspective 65 Moving the spectator through imaginative involvement 73 Notes 84 four: mute eloquence. visual persuasion in english architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 89 Introduction 89 Art became a piece of statecraft 91 Statecraft and stagecraft: constructing a classical past 98 Inigo Jones reconstructs Stonehenge 102 Sublime architecture 110 Architecture speaks a language of its own 123 Notes 134 Part III: Interpretation five: rhetorical interpretation of the visual arts 139 Invention and interpretation in rhetoric 139 Art as theatre: Bartolommeo Maranta on an Annunciation by Titian 144 Vivacità, living presence and humanity 150 Laocoön I am 157 Notes 162 six: only the human can speak to man: rhetorical interpretations of architecture 167 Introduction 167 The shaddowes that signifie 169 Typology 171 Walter Montague s typological defence of courtly splendour 176 Sir Christopher Wren on the Temple of Peace 178 Character and style in French architectural theory of the late eighteenth century 189 Notes 199 coda 203 Notes 205 Bibliography 206 Index: names and concepts 217 Index: rhetorical terms 225 viii

7 illustrations < 1 Andrea di Firenze, Church Militant and Triumphant page 2 2 Myron, Discobolus Masaccio, The Holy Trinity Sebastiano Serlio, Doric façade Sebastiano Serlio, composite façade Sebastiano Serlio, Corinthian façade Vincenzo Scamozzi, regular surfaces Vincenzo Scamozzi, proportions of the human body and artifical forms Giovanni Bellini, Pietà Hagesandrus, Athanodorus and Polydorus, Laocoön Carlo Loth after Titian, Martyrdom of Saint Peter Martyr Michelangelo, Isaiah Titian, Madonna di Ca Pesaro Giovanni Bellini, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (San Zaccaria Altarpiece) Marco Basaiti, Agony in the Garden Giovanni Bellini, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (San Giobbe Altarpiece) Caravaggio, Entombment Veronese, Feast in the House of Levi Titian, Crowning with Thorns Titian, The Death of Actaeon Anglo-Netherlands School, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester Andrea Palladio, façade of the Redentore, Venice Andrea Palladio, frontispice of I Quattro Libri dell Architettura Inigo Jones, design for scene 1, a Roman Atrium, of Albion s Triumph Inigo Jones, view of Stonehenge in original state Inigo Jones, groundplan of Stonehenge in original state 105 ix

8 illustrations 4.7 Inigo Jones, view of Stonehenge as restored Inigo Jones, section of Stonehenge as restored Inigo Jones, groundplan of Stonehenge as restored Andrea Palladio, groundplan of the Pantheon in Rome Andrea Palladio, façade and section of the Pantheon in Rome Sebastiano Serlio, frontispiece of Il Terzo Libro dell Architettura Nicholas Hawksmoor, St Anne Limehouse, London Nicholas Hawksmoor, St Mary Woolnoth, City of London Nicholas Hawksmoor, St George-in-the-East, London, door to gallery staircase Nicholas Hawksmoor, St George Bloomsbury, London, north front Nicholas Hawksmoor, St Anne Limehouse, London Nicholas Hawksmoor, design for St Mary, Warwick Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, view of Castle Howard, Yorkshire Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, plan of Castle Howard, Yorkshire Sir John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, Ealing Sir John Soane, Lincoln s Inn Fields, No. 12, London Titian, Annunciation Andrea del Sarto, Disputà Donatello, St George Donatello, St Mark Hagesandrus, Athanodorus and Polydorus, Laocoön Myron, Discobolus Andrea Palladio, plan of the Temple of Peace in Rome Andrea Palladio, interior and elevational section of the Temple of Peace in Rome Andrea Palladio, detail of the order of the Temple of Peace in Rome Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius, Forum Romanum, Rome Arch of Titus, Rome Arco di Leone, Verona 184 x

9 acknowledgements < In writing this book I have incurred many debts. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge them. My first debt is to the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for providing such generous and liberal funding over the last 12 years to various research programmes on rhetoric and the arts and towards the publication of this book. In particular I would like to thank Piet van Slooten, Mies Wijnen and Annemaries Bos for their support at crucial moments. Auke van der Woud offered unconditional loyalty and what is sometimes its best expression, acute criticism, as my Ph.D. supervisor and subsequently colleague at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and Groningen University. The Dutch Institute in Florence and Rome, the Warburg Institute, Yale University, the University of York and Ghent University were very generous academic hosts. Nicholas Mann made it possible to spend three months at the Warburg and thereby opened up wide intellectual horizons. Christy Anderson, Karen Koehler and Chris Wood, together with the staff of the Yale Centre for British Art and the Beinecke Library, made the six months I spent there a highly successful intellectual mining expedition. David Peters Corbett, Anthony Geraghty and Jeanne Nüchterlein welcomed me at their department in York and enabled me to test out many of the ideas contained in this book on their BA students. At Ghent, Bart Verschaffel and Dirk Demeyer offered me the opportunity to teach architectural theory to architects and develop some ideas on architectural rhetoric in the research seminars of the Theory and History Cell of the Department of Architecture and Urbanism. Maarten Delbeke and Lionel Devlieger were great colleagues in these seminars, on one memorable excursion to Rome, and several conferences. Sophie Ploeg very generously allowed me to use materials from her (as yet) unpublished Ph.D. thesis on Wotton, Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh, and to use some of her excellent photographs. The staff of the Royal Library in The Hague, the British Library, the Soane Museum and the Warburg Institute were very helpful; the Centre for Art Historical Documentation of the Radboud University in Nijmegen offered essential help in finding images and was very generous in its support. xi

10 acknowledgements For their crucial role in the early stages of this project I am much indebted to Marc Fumaroli, Michael Podro and Brian Vickers. While writing the book I had many enlightening conversations, in particular with Stephen Bann, Barry Bergdoll, Lina Bolzoni, Reindert Falkenburg, Jan de Jong, Harry Malgrave, Alina Payne, Jürgen Pieters, Nicholas Savage, Robert Tavernor, Paul Taylor, Aron Kibédi Varga, Edward Winters, Chris Wood and Robert Zwijnenberg. Stijn Bussels, Pamela Edwardes, Edward Grasman and Lex Hermans read the entire manuscript and much improved it. Lex also allowed me to use the manuscript of his book on speaking statues in the Veneto. Conversations with Pamela about the theatre have done much to shape the argument about rhetorical visuality developed here. Lucy Gent read parts of an earlier version of this book, and though I fear she still does not approve of the final result, her comments made me rethink the whole project. Without that shake-up the book could not have been finished. In the background the unbroken interest of my mother, even in times of great illness, was a great and much appreciated support. All errors that remain despite the efforts of these friends and colleagues are entirely my own. At Cambridge University Press Beatrice Rehl had great and I hope justified confidence in this book. The two anonymous readers reports were helpful in shaping and refining the argument. Earlier versions of some parts of Chapters Four and Six were originally published, in a different context and shorter form, in my introduction to David Brett s translation of Germain Boffrand s Livre d Architecture, published by Ashgate in 2003, and in an article on English translations of Longinus in the Georgian Group Journal of The greatest debt, however, is to Hende Bauer. Not just for always being there in spite of my compulsive habit of extended visits to libraries abroad, but also because many of the ideas that shaped this book were born during our conversations in front of art works all over Europe over the past 20 years. xii

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